THE LAND BUTCHERED

A POEM BY Deepachelvan in
Thamizh titled KOLAIYUNDA NILAM[கொலையுண்ட நிலம்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

After the entire stretch of Land has been captured
The roots of dreams are sought to be destroyed.
In walls pierced by shells
In houses eaten away by bombs
In fields demolished by aircrafts
Dream sprouts from wounds.

In the maimed land so barren
The tomb-stones of Buddha forcibly broken
and brought forth
become the walls.
With Poovarasam trees killed
Arasamaram is planted
the land which escapes the hand and is oozing out
The sleeping children
Grasp in their hands and retain
The land drenched - oh, when will it dry?

Fences Walls and Roofs
grow differently
and annihilate the Land.
In this time when guns go grazing the land
the lives buried for the sake of Land
are on the verge of sprouting anew.

0

IN THE CAPITAL CITY THE GHOSTS EAT THE MOUNTAINS

A poem by Deebachelvan in Thamizh titled
THALAI NILATHIL MALAIGALAI THINNUM PEIGAL
[தலை நிலத்தில் மலைகளை தின்னும் பேய்கள்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

The mountains too remain fallen.
So does the Land.
Can’t wash the face in the pond
Ghosts remain with eyes closed in the lotuses
Wandering without vision we go
banging against the ghosts and fall down.

A mammoth ghost is sitting on ‘Trincomalee’.
The king has ordered the ghosts to eat the capital land
daily.
And, in this time when the ghosts eat so and revel,
dancing in the capital city
Faces wither, unable to bear the ugliness of it all.

In the ancient city there is none.
Those who had been chased away
from the all-beautiful city
are yet to return from refugee camps.
In the City of Mountains, under the mountains
the ghosts sleep with cunning schemes.
Slicing the mountains and land they send it to the King

In the shade of Buddha who keeps wandering
with his feet on the mountains
the Buddhist Flags fly.
In the streets where Sinhalese is being applied
the towns being killed and converted into new ones.
With our faces go rotting along with our eyes
in the pond where eyes sprout, riffles swim.

With Butham Saranam craving cruelly to eat away
the Sacred Land
The ships that steal the mountains surround the sea-port.
In the ‘Mahavali’ river ghosts come in boats and settle.
Our lives thrown into Maavilaaru drowned deep into the sea.

The flag of the ghosts that are eating the flag of our fort
has covered, along with the State, the capital city also.
With dream never-ending becomes the delicious food of ghosts
the mountains with the people of the ancient land
where the flag swayed fell off.
and the State too.

27.02.2011

CHILDREN ARE BEING BORN IN THE LAND THAT CAN’T BE DONE AWAY WITH

English Translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh Titled ‘ KOLLA MUDIYAADHA NAATTIL KUZHANDHAIGAL PIRAKKIRAARGAL [கொல்ல முடியாத நாட்டில் குழந்தைகள் பிறக்கிறார்கள்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


Yesterday also some children were born.
They cry
They laugh aloud, making a hell of a noise.
The children keep growing
The children view this Land
with their eyes.
Swinging and swaying their hands
they begin to walk with their legs
in the Land that cannot be done away with.
Even after a hundred-thousand had been dead and gone
the children of those maimed
are being born hale and healthy.
These children
start speaking straightaway.
Questions in thousands unasked by me
would gush forth out of them.
And they would see those aspects of life
that my eyes have failed to see.
They will earn their Liberty.
For, they are born as the seedlings of the
Land that cannot be done away with.

0

PLACE

English translation of Deepachelvan’s poem
in Thamizh titled IDAM[இடம்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Always I remain non-being
As an animal wandering in the woods
with no place of its own
As a bird roaming around in the great grand sky
having no place
I fall upon the Directions
And upon the galaxies too.
All my belongings have been thrown away
In the photographs that lie with no wall
the decaying memories keep flying away.
I have lost my antiques; archives
Nothing I have collected; stored
In this Great Grand Earth
I remain without a place of my own.

0

GHOST CITY GHOST TOWN

Translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh titled
‘PAEI NAGARAM PAEI OOR’ [பேய் நகரம் பேய் ஊர்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Ghosts destroy the City and the Town
Sitting atop the broken houses
they eat the walls turned debris
They keep going inside the holes made of bullets and
surface.
In the house deprived of the smoke of cooking
the odour of ghost becomes all pervading.
With the tales written with charcoal-pieces by the Ghosts
Our city and town remain shell-shocked.
No children
No bicycles
No bullock-carts.
Blocking the way to all
the Ghosts reign supreme.
Converting all places into Ghost City and Ghost Town
climbing atop the destroyed buildings
with the delirious dances that the Ghosts dance
our Land remains shaken to the core.

0

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ANNOUNCED BY THE MURDERERS

A Poem by Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled
KOLAYAALIGAL ARIVITHULLA MARANA THANDANAI
[கொலையாளிகள் அறிவித்துள்ள மரணதண்டனை]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan


The feet of buffaloes that carry along ‘Iyami’
who keeps throwing the noose
that is ever thirsty to taste the necks
stamp on
and destroy us.
With a lakh skeletons buried inside a headgear,
in a lone tomb
is created the dream of an entire populace.
With a cruel smile
the murderers have announced capital punishment.
Red pieces entwine into many a noose.
Plucking out the eyes of the race, that
lie writhing, with undeclared capital punishments
‘Kombarasi’ is eating them to her heart’s content.

The nooses keep swallowing those voices
which when kept inside prisons well-covered
come out piercing through the iron-bars.
With hunger that remains raging even after the killing spree
‘Iyami’ dances deliriously.
Fixing the time,
killing and feeding on-
in the nooses of those murderers
We are being wasted away.

0

THE MOTHER OF THE ERA OF TEARS

Translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh titled ‘KANNEER YUGATHIN THAAI [கண்ணீர் யுகத்தின் தாய்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

With children lost and wandering
when the light went out of the Earth
the Mother of an Era had died.
The Earth trembled in shock unbearable.
In an Era where children weeping non-stop
for their mothers
shedding tears torrentially_
a House turns heavy.
In the walls built by the mothers
Dreamy visuals criss-a-cross
The foot-prints that prove elusive to the fingers
of Mother who wash the ground
anguish faraway.
Sorrow swelled to the brim in the hearth.
When a hundred-thousand children
lost their mothers
a hundred-thousand mothers
lost their children.
Who has cursed the world where Mothers weep,
turning into hapless children?
Oh, who is it that gives the Mothers
children burdened with fear_
eyes filled with longing_
words writhing in pain_
face, tear-spread_
Time-sorrow-struck….

0

THE SHADE OF PEACE

A poem of Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled ‘AMAIDHIYIN NIZHAL’ [அமைதியின் நிழல்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

When death becomes the weapon to kill and silence
All and sundry begin to battle
People would bring in again
the shade of peace someday.
In times of darkness
I pen these words
When you wipe your war clean
and chase away the shady dominance
light would spread on this land.
Oh, this unfortunate era
comes to a close without seeing the shade of peace
full of flowers blooming,
without blood-shed and wounds.
How lovely it would be?

THE LONG PASSAGE AND A CUP OF TEA

A Poem by Deebachelvan in Thamizh titled
‘PERU VAZHIYUM ORU KOEPAI THAENEERUM’
[பெரு வழியும் ஒரு கிண்ணம் தேனீரும்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

In the long passage how many thousands of people
kept on moving…
None had cups
Time held the sorrows
Those who were returning and migrating _
what at all they could share?
The roads that spread across thousands of miles_
Wherefrom they were created and how?
In the town where nothing save the remains of destruction
exist
machines were sown.
At the end of endless wandering
the people had been mortgaged for a cup of water.
Mother remained all hungry
Loads became dried up
Turning weak, on the verge of falling down on her land
She asked for a cup of water;
And also, a way out of the barbed wire.
In the night shrouding the Land,
from beyond a thousand miles
came I running, with a Cup of Tea.

0

THE LAND WHERE BIRDS HAVE FALLEN

English translation of Deepachelvan’s poem in Thamizh

titled PARAVAIGAL VEEZHNDHA NILAM

[பறவைகள் வீழ்ந்த நிலம்]
Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Till how long I would be singing of Land alone?
Till the time I am uprooted
Till the time I keep the land safely held in the hands of children
I would go on singing the Land alone.
In the woods of birds
the children have kept hidden the words of the Land.

Today in that soil
with the birds falling down, writhing in pain
alien clans have planted themselves.
The children who keep searching for some birds
still to be hanging suspended from those trees
felled and wounded
keep Falling into the Pits-Politics of Land-Grabbing.

When we were being chased away from the Land
all the birds too had fallen.
The alien-clans that eat the heart of the soil
swallowed the seas.
The lions that entered as machines hunted down the Land.

With the tales written by the feet pressed afresh
on the seashore
the fish of the boy’s pond
suffered a painful death.
In the villages vanquished with foreign names
Peace is being eaten away by the wisdom of Buddha.
Even after having experienced the worst
and have come to fall
the children keep singing
the songs of our Soil.
How can I remain silent
without singing our children’s loss of the land?

DEMONS DEVOVOUR THE CHILDREN

A poem by Deepachelvan in Thamizh titled ‘KUZHANDHAIGALAI THINNUM BOODHANGAL [குழந்தைகளைத் தின்னும் பூதங்கள்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Deleting the tales read by children which know not anything but fear
the cruel Demons come and shake the very Life.
The Demons that drink blood slice off the breasts
that nurse the children
and swallow them in one gulp.
The Devils search for kids too along with the Land
and swallow them.

In order to pluck away the eyes of little children
hiding the army uniform and the red leather-box
and wearing cruel attires,
with razor-edged knives fixed to the nails
the Demons sought entry into the world
and floated.

With acts yet unknown regarding the Demons
the children are terrorized more and more.
The kids fear visualizing the demons
near the compound wall and behind it
and behind the door too,
devovouring the houses without a care.
With the demons that reside inside the well
and turn delirious by the hour
the children spend their time
in hunger and horror.

The demons that spring from the seats of power and dominance
that dance in frenzy
rise up in full view of us and go out of sight.
With the Demonl reigning supreme the devils wander
With Devils on the throne the demons have a hay day.

In the street where the Demons wander in hunger unleashed
throats lie slit and cut.
The Demons that along with blood gulp words too
climb up the trees and hide themselves,
from where they shake everything along with
the land.
Demons that no mothers nor children had ever seen nor read
Oh these children are cursed to come face to face.

THE ‘SENKAANTHAL’ FLOWERS

A poem in Thamizh by Deepachelvan titled *SENKAANTHAL BLOSSOMS [செங்காந்தள் பூக்கள்] Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

When the stones with Memory bloomed upon
were uprooted and broken
Our Land swayed.
With the Land burnt
the tombs were smashed.
For those who had fought for a Life denied and
breathed their last
a resting place was refused.
Despite the mammoth Demon
entering into the Land and devovouring the roots
the trees which couldn’t be done away with
begin to sprout again.
In the corners of our dwellings
and at the lanes of our streets
over the cities
and in the villages
the fountain of light springs
In the Land where the Light is extinguished
lamps glow.
When the live trees were being felled
the mothers’ hearts were on fire.
Time keeps swirling.
In the Land sabotaged
the Senkaanthal blossoms have surfaced.

THE LAND OF ‘*YAAZH’ {The LAND of LUTE/ LOOT}

By Deebachelvan Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

01
The sound of ‘Yaazh’(lute) rings, bruised and battered.
The hands that come to take away the land
drags off the lute, tear it and smash it.
“Let this lute break into pieces;
Or, better still, turn into ashes”.
Thus, with secret slogans
all and sundry arrive,
uproot the lute and throw it away.
The cups held in the hands of those who are
seated in those lined-up air-conditioned cushions
under the shade of those sky-piercing cut-outs
that hide all faces,
are filled to the brim with
Yaazh’s ashes.

In the city of Yaazh someone has hoisted another song
and they are gulping and munching the Yaazh,
its ashes and all.
All over the town, all over the land
many a broken yaazh are strewn
for the feet to stamp on them, ground them.
That evening
in the Land of Yaazh
they gobbled
the anguished moan of the nerves
tearing apart-
relishing and revelling.

02
With the children of the refugees
who know not their home lands
unaware of the Yaazh, dozing along the train tracks,
those who have been driven out of the
high-safety zones
remain on the streets
with no abodes of their own-
resembling the abandoned street-children

Are those trains to come again?
With wheels where blood and flesh are thickly stuck
are they to enter inside the zone
for finding their routes?
Are they to butcher again those hapless ones
who keep wandering for their land?
These children born on the railway-tracks
have seen no trains.
These children who have no house of their own
have never once smiled, you know…
And, everyday they smash and ground those
heavy rail-stones with their tender feet.

03
Our children have no toys in their hands
These children who are born in a life
that itself has turned into a
plaything
are holding tight rubbles and garbages
instead of toys
and they play tin-wastes
as substitute for Yaazh.
In the mornings
when others are yet to wake up
they come with garbage bags
in the corners of the city where all sorts of wastes
coming from all directions
overflow
they befriend the ‘Ilayaangal’
believing in the Wastes
and are being born and brought up
with Wastes.

The School-bags which they collect
from the wastes,
the pens with ink dried-up-
the heads of dolls -
Oh, how do they name them and ask for?
When these children, with the smell of wastes all over,
kiss, the nerves of Yaazh-heart burst and explode.


04
The walls that have shrouded the ashes -
Oh, will they break off due to the intense vibrations?
Again and again they attempt
to throw, not just stones but also torches
on these books,
to dig and stir the ashes
that are stuck on the shrunken and parched walls.
Just like our Land-
as an exhibit in every sense
our books remain, without being comprehended.
When we spread open these books
ashes spill over on all sides.
They steal away our ashes too.
In our books, with the pages changed
new tales are written and collected.

05
These ones too came along with burning torches.
They saw Syril Mathew and
Gamini Thisanayaka
swallowing the ash-oozing burnt books and languishing.
They saw in those countenances
the faces of Today’s Rulers.
With vengeful memories
they threw away those books.
They have no mind to leave those sorrow-struck mothers
writhing in pain, wailing for those books too,
butchered along with their off-springs.
Cruel hands keep stretching for ever
to tear to pieces the tales of
the ‘sons of soil’ of our Land
that keep whispering into our ears,
noiselessly.
That evening, all over the city of Yaazh
Our books torn to pieces kept floating in the air
And finally settled on the sea.

These tyrannous vultures keep hovering over,
Steadily circling
to kill our books.
They are all set to do all that they can
against our books too.

06
In the place where we had been chased away with guns and uniforms
Some others came and sat.
The documents that we have
are forcibly snatched and torn off
by the tyrannous hands.
And the new cool documents being brought
as substitutes
declare us aliens in our Land.
Not contented with having those
mammoth mountains
They ask share in our Land
and attempt to write in our archives
deep-rooted underneath our soil-
the *Arasa-Mara (Pipal Trees) tales of Buddha..

Buddha who is in deep meditation with eyes closed
Oh, how we wish him to have at least opened them
when our Land and people were being torched.
The idols of Buddha with their legs widespread
wearing military uniform
keep moving with their eyes tightly shut.
Buddha, the Unseeing,
your sons are roaming all over the street of Yaazh
with guns.
Their cruel hands are ever stretching
to divide our Land
and gobble the particles.

Oh You, the Sea, who has alighted here?
In the damaged and demolished abodes of
the inhabitants of this coastal land
tales of sorrow-filled time, unheard and unread,
lay stuck; embedded ;aplenty.
Alas, who have strewn all over our soil the seeds,
along with the roots too, of alien trees?
Our sea has been bruised to the core.
With the mouth of Yaazh brutally broken
it remains wordless as never before.
__________________

*Yazh – Lute
*Arasa Maram -Pipal Tree

PLEASE PRAY FOR MY LAND

By Deebachelvan Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Out of those hands
that come forth to slice and smash into fragments
the Land, fallen and steeped in sorrow
as the commands unfold -
Our land writhes in pain untold

When our hapless people are instructed
to get displaced yet again
the children turn terror-stricken and cry
feeling the soil with their tender hands.
The Land that used to turn damp and nourished
on a rainy day when the rivers flow kissing the soil
lies all scorched, parched and boiling.

We have nothing left
except despair and disappointment.

The burglars of broad-day-light tear into shreds
any Hope left.
Oh, how many hands assault the Land
again and again and again?
How many more laws are being written
to rob us of our Land?
Alas, what all shapes and forms lusting greedily
To loot the Land where we were born and brought up?

With all our strength gone
when we, betrayed and abandoned by all gods,
languish here feeding on sorrows and sufferings -
will you be kind enough to pray for my Land
-Oh, My Dear Unknown Friend…

Terribly anguished, ever languishing, the people
who keep running from pillar to post,
for retrieving the documents snatched away
of the lands forcibly seized,
have no words that could sprout into tender shoots.
The present climate when Time-the tyrant
that gobbles the dwellings
and unleash unending harassment on the people,
terrify us.
With all the promises and assurances for their
own piece of Land belied
and betrayed
People are being butchered along with their Land.

For our people, let down and betrayed -
For our children who cry for their
Lands , wandering in search of it -
For our own small dwelling -
Please do pray, My Dear Unknown Friend
The low-land is made all the more lower….
Along with the rivers
the Marudha’ trees too tremble,
squirm in anguish and sway, intensely restive.

The very personification of pain and sorrow – Oh, Mother
Your tears and the blood of your children
Gush forth, flooding this river.
Oh, my dear children of this low-land
Where at all can we go?
The Land still damp with Blood and Tears
is made all the more wet with unbearable sorrow


From street to street, village to village
town to town_
the too long and broad hands of those swindlers of soil
go all stretched and grabbing
Oh, please do continue to pray for our Land;
Won’t you?
___________________
November 2010

Note: In the low-lying areas of Rathinapuram where I live the State has Ordered more than 25 families living there to vacate and shift to some other place. The people living in Rathinapuram village which is located on the outskirts of Kilinochi town have been living here for ages and are the ‘sons of the soil’, so to say.

THE LAND OF *‘erukkalai’ flower

A POEM BY DEEBACHELVAN

Translated into English by Latha Ramakrishnan

Are you listening to those voices that keep wandering
all over the ‘erukkalai land?
“Oh Mother, “Ever our Dear Mother Land!
_ So I can hear those words unleashed
rising up from the debris of tombs
that are smashed and broken

From the seed-pit filled up to the neck
with tears of a mammoth mass of humans,
blood oozes out.
Do you realize that you have killed but the Immortals?
Pieces of bones have popped up and
broken apart.
Hand over those smashed fragments of bones
and that of tombs.
So the Mothers wail, beating their chests.

Oh, I can hear it all

The ‘erukkalai’ saplings sprout aplenty

Our hands have no saplings
The coconut trees are not in a position
to give us saplings
Upon the land where the tender ones lie dead,
burnt beyond recognition,
gigantic trees stand with wounds all over.

The Mothers who were hoping against hope
that the tombs would bloom
refuse to believe that you have butchered the tombs too.
The Land that used to shine red figuratively,
with lights and lamps
Today, turn red literally with the blood
flowing out of tombs sliced and smashed

Wearing the erukkalai blossoms my beloved
surfaces out of those pits and approaches me.
In the roots of the erukkalai tree
my brother has spread his contenance.
The children have nothing
except erukkalai leaves to read and play.
“They are there, underneath the ground”_
so blabber the words of mother turned child.

This Great Land is turning into a land
of the erukkalai flower
Did you hear what those wandering underneath
speak?
Did you see their dreams and visions?
The more they are cut – the more bloom
the karthigai flowers

The lives wide-awake, unable to lie cease raging and sleep
keep wandering for ever.
In the butchered tombs the ever alive dream overflows
In the smashed bits and fragments
why have the erukkalai come to sprout?
They grow dense, intense
as our Dream
___________________

Image: The Memorial of the Dead in Kilinochi has been destroyed

*erukkalai : a shrub that grows aplenty in Cemetry/burial grounds